Disney World Reverses Years-Long Millennium Falcon Alteration, Restores Original Experience
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run has changed quite a bit in 2026, but one of its newest improvements actually takes the attraction back to its earliest days.
Disney has restored an original feature inside the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. After spending years out of operation, the large doors leading into the Hondo Ohnaka preshow room are finally working again.
It might seem like a small detail compared to the attraction’s recent storyline changes, but these doors were part of the experience Disney originally designed when Galaxy’s Edge opened.
Now, guests can experience that transition again.
Preshow Doors Are Finally Moving Again
Guests waiting for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run eventually reach a pair of large doors separating the main queue from Hondo Ohnaka’s preshow room.
When Galaxy’s Edge first opened, those doors remained closed until Disney was ready to bring another group inside.
They would slide open, guests would enter the room, and the doors would close behind them before the preshow continued.
However, that operation didn’t last very long.
Not long after the land opened, the doors stopped moving. Disney instead left them open, allowing guests to see directly into the next portion of the attraction as they approached.
The ride remained operational, but the transition Disney originally created was gone.
That has finally changed.
The doors are once again opening to allow groups into the preshow and closing behind them.
A Small Change Restores Part of the Original Experience
Smugglers Run relies on more than its ride system to make guests feel like they have entered the Star Wars universe.
The queue gradually moves visitors away from Black Spire Outpost and into Hondo’s operation before ultimately placing them aboard the Millennium Falcon.
Separating those spaces helps each part of the attraction feel like its own scene.
With the doors working again, guests don’t simply walk from the regular queue directly into the preshow through a permanently open entrance. Instead, the doors create a clearer transition before Hondo recruits another crew.
It’s a relatively minor restoration, especially compared to everything else Disney has recently changed inside the attraction.
But it brings back an element that had been missing for years.
Smugglers Run Has Entered a New Era
The restoration comes shortly after Disney rolled out a major update for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
Disney first revealed plans for the new experience during D23 in 2024. The addition brought Din Djarin and Grogu into the attraction while giving returning guests a reason to climb back into the Millennium Falcon cockpit.
Hondo Ohnaka remains involved, although his role has changed.
The updated preshow has Hondo stealing the Millennium Falcon rather than borrowing it from Chewbacca. References to the First Order and Resistance were also removed.
Those adjustments represent a much more noticeable change than the returning doors, but both affect how guests experience the attraction before boarding.
There Are Now Multiple Destinations
The adventure has also become less predictable once guests reach the cockpit.
Crews can now travel to three different locations: Bespin, Coruscant, or the wreckage of the second Death Star above Endor.
A randomly selected engineer helps determine which location the crew receives.
That means two rides on Smugglers Run don’t necessarily have to produce the same experience, giving repeat visitors another reason to return.
Between the new destinations, updated characters, altered preshow, and restored doors, Smugglers Run looks considerably different than it did not long ago.
Disney Brings Back an Opening-Day Detail
The working doors won’t change where the Millennium Falcon flies or what guests do inside the cockpit.
Still, theme park immersion often depends on details that guests may not consciously think about.
A door closing behind a group helps separate one scene from another. It prevents guests farther back in line from seeing everything happening ahead of them and makes entering Hondo’s room feel more intentional.
For years, that small piece of the experience was missing.
Now it’s back.
Disney has spent much of 2026 giving Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run new reasons to attract returning guests. In this case, however, the latest improvement isn’t something new at all.
It’s an original part of the attraction finally working again.
